Happy Monday!
Today’s Squad
Aditya Banerjee (Founder & CEO, Posana) →12:40PM CT
Ashley Christenson (Marketing & Community Lead / Independent Advisor & Creator) → 1:10PM CT
Maximilian Breall (Co-Founder & Marketing/Sales Director, Central Coast Live Foods) → 1:45PM CT
Kevin Simonson (CEO, adMixt) → 2:10PM CT
Top Stories
Más+ by Messi No More - Más+ by Messi is being phased out after just 23 months, with Mark Anthony Brands admitting the RTD line fell short despite a stacked deck: a generational icon, a clean product, Inter Miami, and a home World Cup on deck. Proof that fame buys the first purchase but never the habit — and celebrity can't paper over the real killers, wrong category positioning and wrong format.
Meta on AI Hardware and an AI Pendant? - Meta is reportedly going all-in on AI hardware — an AI pendant, expanded smart glasses, and a "Wearables for Work" service — chasing 10M device sales in the back half of 2026 and a software layer monetized through AI subscriptions like Meta AI Assistant and a new agent called Hatch. The ambition is huge, but so is the hole: Reality Labs still bled over $4B in operating losses last quarter on just $402M in revenue.
Quince on Physical Pop-ups - Quince is taking its online brand into the physical world with a North American pop-up run, the latest being a one-day LA furniture showroom inside the Sunset Tower Hotel built to showcase its fast-growing home collection through shoppable QR codes and take-home accessories. For a manufacturer-to-consumer brand now expanding into wellness, fragrance, and gourmet food, the real play isn't sales — it's building enough trust in product quality that online shoppers will try its newer categories.
Own the Machine, or Rent It Forever
By Colin Dougherty
Colin Elefante built an agency on unlimited done-for-you statics. He saw where ad creative was headed and decided to commoditize his own service before someone else did. So he flipped the whole model.
Instead of selling brands creative, he now builds AI creative systems inside the brand.
The system beats deliverables.
The new game is custom tools built for one niche use case. One of his clients changed their packaging, so he built a tool that swaps the old box for the new one across every winning ads they already had running. Before AI, you'd never bother building something that specific. Now it only takes an afternoon.
With the need for diverse ad creative only growing in 2026 and beyond: own the machine that makes your creative, or rent it forever.
Highlight Reel: Altina CEO’s Pitch for Smart Glasses Without the Surveillance
Timeline: Town Square
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Made Possible By:
Axon by AppLovin - Reach 1B+ new customers; advertise on mobile games.
Seguno - the Shopify-native marketing suite for brands that run it themselves.
Insense - The all-in-one UGC and influencer marketing platform.
Postscript - Make more money from every SMS message.
Proxima - Use real conversion data to power your creative briefs.
Northbeam - Measure the “unmeasurable,” make your marketing profitable.
Rokt Aftersell - More profit from the orders you’re already getting.
Universal Ads - TV ads that deliver for performance marketers.
See you live,
Ecomm Cowboy Team